mikal – Page 78 – Made by Mikal

Cloud Warrior

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 19, 2008
Post category:Book

I read this post-nuclear holocaust book as a kid and liked it, so I thought I'd give it a try again. Given most second hand science fiction books are $2, the barrier to entry is admittedly quite low as well. This book revolves around two groups -- the Amtrak Federation (a military society formed from survivors of those who crewed MX missile trains, a real system of roaming trains carrying nuclear missiles from the late 1980s and early 1990s -- the idea was that something which moved was harder for the Russians to find) and the "Mutes" (the civilan survivors of the holocaust, who are now mutated by radiation). Its a good book, although very different from the Asimov I've been reading recently. That's a good thing, because I think I need a bit of an Asimov break to be honest. [isbn: 0671559729;0722185162;1857235355]

Isaac Asimov’s Foundation Series

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 18, 2008
Post category:Book

I'm getting really into reading second hand science fiction from the 1950s onward. I read a few (but nowhere near all) of the Foundation series as a child, and I remember liking them a lot. Stolen from Wikipedia as well as other online sources, here is a list of the books in The Foundation series in Asimov's suggested reading order... The Robot Short Stories Recommendations: read The Complete Robot end to end, and then read the new stories only found in Robot Dreams and Robot Visions. Year Title Notes 1992 The Positronic Man Robot novel based on Asimov's short story The Bicentennial Man, co-written by Robert Silverberg. 1954 The Caves of Steel Robot novel. 1957 The Naked Sun Robot novel. 1983 The Robots of Dawn Robot novel. 1985 Robots and Empire Robot novel. 1993 Isaac Asimov's Caliban Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. These three books were quite hard to get, as they're no longer for sale. 1994 Isaac Asimov's Inferno Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. These three books were quite hard to get, as they're no longer for sale. 1996 Isaac Asimov's Utopia Caliban trilogy by Roger MacBride Allen. These three books were quite hard to get, as they're no…

Robot Dreams

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 18, 2008
Post category:Book

Robot Dreams is another of the robot short story books from Asimov. It is a bit deceptive though and frankly quite annoying because only one of the stories in the book is a robot story, and its not very long.I am of course ignoring the robot stories that already appear in I, Robot and The Complete Robot. The rest are unrelated short stories by Asimov that aren't about robots, and aren't even consistent with the universe that the Foundation books exist in. That's what makes it so annoying for Asimov to recommend that you read the book as part of the extended Foundation series. Grumble. Don't get me wrong, the other stories are fine, its just that they're not the robot stories that I was led to believe they would be. Wikipedia is a little more clear on the situation than I was: Robot Dreams (1986) is a collection of Isaac Asimov's short stories, intended largely to show a series of Asimov robot-inspired drawings by Ralph McQuarrie. All the stories except the title one, written specifically for the volume, can be found in various other Asimov collections. The companion book, which also showcases McQuarrie's drawings (and includes Asimov essays in…

MythNetTV mailing list

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 14, 2008
Post category:Mythtv

I get a few support requests for MythNetTV, and I must admit that I sometimes get quite behind on my personal email, especially when I'm travelling. I've therefore created a mailing list for announcements and discussion in the hope that people will chat and come up with great ideas, as well as being able to support each other.

MythNetTV release 4

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 14, 2008
Post category:Mythtv

New things in this release: Removed gflags because people found it hard to find Bug fix patch from David Linville applied Fixed broken imports caused by refactoring Transcode not needed for avc1 and m4v Another bug fix patch from David Linville applied Store filesize in the db Removed some namespace imports I am not a fan of Made verbosity optional for --update Small code cleanups Let the user know of repeated attempts to download a program Documented the need for bittornado for bittorrent to work Abandon downloading after 3 failed attempts (you can configure the number) Detect stuck bittorrent downloads Release 3 had a few bugs folks reported, this release should fix those problems. Let me know if you still see any. You can grab your copy here.

Getting rid of cable TV?

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 13, 2008
Post category:Mythtv

I'm thinking of getting rid of comcast and getting a high def over the air tuner as well as a netflix subscription. I'd be interested in people's opinions of netflix. I guess I'm just fed up with comcast's woeful customer service, quite ordinary analog reception, and complete lack of any new programming. Its been about six months since there was something we really wanted to watch on the channels we get, and I've only just noticed...

Discovering the CASE statement

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 12, 2008
Post category:Mysql

In an effort to speed up my database updates, I've been looking for ways to batch some of my updates. CASE seems like the way to go: mysql> create table bar(a tinyint, b tinyint); Query OK, 0 rows affected (0.02 sec) mysql> insert into bar(a) values(1), (2), (3), (4), (5); Query OK, 5 rows affected (0.00 sec) Records: 5 Duplicates: 0 Warnings: 0 mysql> select * from bar; +------+------+ | a | b | +------+------+ | 1 | NULL | | 2 | NULL | | 3 | NULL | | 4 | NULL | | 5 | NULL | +------+------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec) mysql> update bar set b = case a -> when 1 then 42 -> when 2 then 43 -> when 3 then 44 -> else 45 -> end; Query OK, 5 rows affected (0.00 sec) Rows matched: 5 Changed: 5 Warnings: 0 mysql> select * from bar; +------+------+ | a | b | +------+------+ | 1 | 42 | | 2 | 43 | | 3 | 44 | | 4 | 45 | | 5 | 45 | +------+------+ 5 rows in set (0.00 sec) I see stuff online which warns not…

The Complete Robot

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 12, 2008
Post category:Book

This is another of Asimov's robot short story collections, and many of the stories appear in earlier works. In fact, I would recommend getting I, Robot and this book, and avoiding The Rest of the Robots if you're not interested in owning a complete collection of books, but do want to have all of the stories. I say you should get a copy of I, Robot mainly because it has linking matter between the stories that this book lacks. The Complete Robot is as good as Asimov's other short story books I have read, which means I thought it was fantastic. [isbn: 0586057242]

Isaac Asimov’s Utopia

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 12, 2008
Post category:Book

Utopia is the third and final Asimov universe book from Allen. It centers around an attempt to accellerate the terraforming of a planet by drastic measures which drive third law robots wild... The measures are so drastic that they endanger humans, whilst protecting a large number of humans. Unfortunately three law robots have trouble seeing the difference between the two. I don't think this book is as well written as the earlier two Allen books (Caliban and Inferno) and therefore not as good as the Asimov books set in the universe. It was however reasonably engaging and I'm not offended that I spent time and money on it. An ok book, but nothing special basically.

The Stainless Steel Rat Series

Post author:mikal
Post published:August 11, 2008
Post category:Book

I am increasingly becoming obsessed with science fiction from 1950s and 1960s. Again stolen from Wikipedia, here is a list of all the Stainless Steel Rat books: 1985: A Stainless Steel Rat Is Born 1987: The Stainless Steel Rat Gets Drafted 1994: The Stainless Steel Rat Sings the Blues 1961: The Stainless Steel Rat 1970: The Stainless Steel Rat's Revenge 1972: The Stainless Steel Rat Saves the World 1978: The Stainless Steel Rat Wants You 1982: The Stainless Steel Rat for President 1996: The Stainless Steel Rat Goes to Hell 1999: The Stainless Steel Rat Joins the Circus 1993: The Golden Years of the Stainless Steel Rat (a short story in Stainless Steel Visions) 2011: The Stainless Steel Rat Returns Additionally, there is: 1993: Stainless Steel Visions 1998: You can be the Stainless Steel Rat -- a choose your own adventure book